The Peoria Rivermen got two key players from the St. Louis Blues on Sunday, and hired a new radio play-by-play voice for their AHL club.

The parent club Blues sent down second-year winger Chris Porter and defenseman Tyson Strachan, likely the final cuts from the NHL team at their respective positions.

Both Rivermen returnees, Porter fits among Peoria's top six forwards. Strachan may be the top defensive defenseman.

The Rivermen, meanwhile, signed Brendan Burke as their new radio voice and public relations director. Burke, 24, called games in the ECHL the last two seasons for the Wheeling Nailers.

"It's fantastic," Burke said. "To be 24 and 2 1/2 years out of college and be at the AHL level ... it's a step a lot of people would like to make. I can't wait to get started."

The job opened when Rivermen radio voice Tom Callahan moved up to NHL Nashville in late September. Peoria asked Norm Ulrich, who retired after the 2006-07 season, to return while they searched for a new voice.

Ulrich will work all three games for the Rivermen when the 2008-09 AHL season opens this weekend. Burke will take over, solo, from the fourth game on, while Ulrich slides into the team's vacant public address announcer's position.

Burke was born in Milwaukee, and his father, Don, is a sportswriter who covered the then-IHL Admirals, Green Bay Packers and Milwaukee Brewers. The family moved to Fairlawn, N.J., and Burke grew up there, just outside New York City.

He called games for Cornell's women's hockey team, and graduated from Ithaca College in New York in 2006. He moved on to the ECHL's Nailers, where he was the youngest broadcaster in the league.

In the spring and summer, Burke has served as radio voice for the Lakewood (N.J.) BlueClaws, the Phillies farm club in the single-A South Atlantic League.